Education and Care Services Ministers Andrew Adonis and Ivan Lewis, today announced the start of a three-year transformation in short break services for disabled children. Twenty-one local areas will launch the first wave of a £370m investment for local authorities that will extend to all of England from 2009.
This major funding investment from Government will provide many more disabled children with enjoyable and valuable experiences away from their parents and carers. In turn parents and carers will have the well earned chance to take a break from caring.
To meet the needs of families the short breaks will vary in length from just a few hours to a weekend or week, with disabled children and young people being cared for in their own home or given opportunities to access activities and places in the wider community.
Evidence for the 'Aiming High for Disabled Children' review found that short breaks are seen as the highest priority service for families with disabled children. 'Aiming High for Disabled Children' will deliver a total of £430 million plus to local authorities in new investment in disabled children's services during 2008-11 and additional funds to PCTs.
Andrew Adonis said:
"The Government wants all families to have the support they need to bring up their children, including disabled children. At the same time, disabled children and young people deserve the same opportunities as other children and young people to experience life away from their families and grow to their full potential. Short breaks have a vital role to play in this and we are now looking to local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCT) to deliver a step change in short break provision."
Health Minister, Ivan Lewis said:
"Substantial new growth funding has been included in PCT allocations from 2008 to enable them to work with local authorities to significantly increase the range and number of short breaks. It is intended that all disabled children will benefit from this investment, including those with complex health needs or life limiting conditions requiring palliative care."
Local authorities will receive £269m revenue and £90m capital funding to improve short breaks services over the next three years (2008-09 to 2010-11) with a further £11m revenue for national delivery. In the first year the majority of funding will be allocated to the 21 pathfinder areas with all other local authorities receiving an average of £50,000 to help them prepare to transform their short break services from 2009. Subject to adequate preparations all local authorities will then receive a share of £76m revenue and £33m capital in 2009-10 and £178m revenue and £52m capital in 2010-11.
In addition to this funding for local authorities, the Department of Health has also provided significant funding to PCTs to improve services for disabled children with complex health needs and those with life limiting conditions which require palliative care, over the same period and has identified short break services as a local priority for NHS services from 2008.
Christine Lenehan, Director of the Council for Disabled Children and Member of the Ministerial Implementation Group for Aiming High for Disabled Children, said:
"These are truly significant sums of money which will give local authorities and their NHS partners every opportunity to provide the support that disabled children and their families need. It is essential that the funding is used to provide high quality breaks that give disabled children access to positive activities, as well as giving their families a break from caring."
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The 21 pathfinder authorities are:
Bradford, Bolton, Bournemouth-Dorset-Poole (joint pathfinder), Brighton, Dudley, Derbyshire, Enfield, Gloucestershire, Gateshead, Halton, Kent, North Yorkshire, North Tyneside, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk, Sutton, Sunderland, Telford & Wrekin.
2. The pathfinders have been chosen following a rigorous selection process. All pathfinders have been assessed as having the capacity to deliver immediate improvements to the short breaks services that they offer, while at the same time developing and sharing information and best practice in short break service commissioning and provision. All the information from the selection process is being analysed by Capita and will be published in a report to provide shared learning to underpin the short breaks transformation programme.
3. The pathfinder areas also:
* represent a spread across regions and rural and urban locations;
* include areas with a strong BME population base.
4. The Department originally set out revenue allocation of £261m for short breaks in the Local Authority settlement letter on 6 December, with £19m to support national delivery. This has been increased to £269m for Local Authorities, with £11m for national delivery. The Department also announced an additional £90m capital for the short breaks programme as part of the Children's Plan published on 11 December.
Table 1 - which shows funding allocations to pathfinder areas over the next three years.
Table 2 - shows national level funding, with 2009-10 and 2010-11 funding in non-pathfinder areas being contingent on adequate service preparation in 2008- 09
These Tables are available at http://admin.dfes.gov.uk/pns/pressnotices/AdminDisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0007
Source: PR-USA.net
No comments:
Post a Comment